Fail: Detroit Advertises Wrong Election Date on City Billboards

Do you remember when the city of Detroit “misplaced” a one million dollar check? Because I do. Now, however, it seems some genius in city hall also ordered a billboard company to plaster the wrong election date on a number of the city’s billboards. Oops:

Billboards in Detroit advertised the wrong date for the city’s general election in November, according to a report.

The billboards purchased by the city urge citizens to vote Sept. 2nd in the general election, when the general election is actually Nov. 5, the Detroit Free Press reports

City Clerk Janice Winfrey said the signs were updated by billboard company International Outdoor and that she immediately called them over the weekend to fix the mistake. Barring any rain, the billboards are set to be fixed Tuesday.

In last week’s mayoral primary, Benny Napoleon, the county sheriff, and Mike Duggan, the former CEO of the Detroit Medical Center came out ahead and will face each other in the November election.

But the winner of the race won’t wield as much power as in previous years. After the city declared bankruptcy last month, Gov. Rick Snyder placed the city’s finances under the control of an emergency manager.

Considering the city is bankrupt I wonder how costly this mistake was, and what’s more, how this even happened. I could understand, I suppose, if they plastered “November 4th” or “November 6th” as the date of the election by accident. But how on earth did they miss the mark by more than two months? It’s entirely possible that the billboard company made the error, or perhaps there was some sort of miscommunication between both parties. Either way, this minor mishap is a window into how utterly dysfunctional the city of Detroit is. If they can’t even get the date of a general election right, how can they ever hope to solve the city’s real problems?